Fast acting customers save golfer's life after heart attack on course

PETALUMA, Calif. (KTVU) - A North Bay golf outing over the weekend could have had deadly consequences had not the course’s customers and crew not stepped up to heroic tasks.

At the Rooster Run Golf Course, the staff turned out to be anything by chicken. What could have been a tragedy here Saturday morning was prevented by tenacity and technology.

Last Saturday morning, a golfer at Petaluma's Rooster Run Golf Course collapsed during what appeared to be a heart attack. A chain of actions and events saved that golfer's life.

"People on the golf course who were with him and around him, immediately called 911, administered CPR, and then they called the clubhouse where they knew there was an AED that was recently put in there by the local Rotary Club about a year ago, and people at the club house, staff at the club house, took the AED, jumped in a gold cart and rushed it out to the scene," said Battalion Chief Jeff Schach of the Petaluma Fire Department.

There, on the instructions of the 911 operators, the AED, the Automatic External Defibrillator, shocked the patient into a normal heart rhythm, as the Fire Department arrived to stabilize and transport the patient to the hospital.

“All you have to do is turn it on or open the lid, and the machine will walk you though everything you need to do,” said Battalion Chief Schach.

The machine has safeguards to make sure the patient really needs to be shocked. It also automatically prevents accidental shocking of the person applying it.

All police and fire units have the AEDs, along with every school and scores of other public and private faceless city wide. Many were supplied by organizations that raised money to donate the thousand dollars per unit AEDs.

"The recent update was that he went through a little bit of a procedure and, I believe he is in full recovery with zero deficits," said Schach.

The first actions, by bystanders to apply CPR, most likely made the difference in creating a good outcome. That's why it’s so important for many of us to learn it too.